Posted from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

And away we go…. We made our flight to Singapore but not without a level of drama. Firstly, we noticed a crack in the side undercarriage of our hire car the day before we had to fly out. Of course, we had not taken the extra insurance, and our travel insurance did not start till the following day. Looks like we were going to be stung for $700. We were running a bit late, needed to get fuel, got to the post office, the chemist drop off the car, argue about the damage, then check in. We knew we might have some problems checking in as well… more about that in a minute.

We decided to come clean with the damage and claim we had not caused it(we hadn’t) even though it was not on the inspection report. Luckily, the hertz guy was very reasonable and didn’t worry about it. Whew. We had panicked about it for 24 hours. Next, after lining up for 30 minutes we tried to check in only to be told no, sorry, no can do. We did not have proof of onward travel. Of course we didn’t, we were buying train tickets in Singapore. Apparently even though Singapore does not care, Jetstar does as they could get in trouble for letting us on the plan without such proof. It’s all bullshit, they just want to sell you a “fully refundable ticket” which for 4 tickets costs $120 in admin fees. My tip? Never fly Jetstar. So we rush to the ticket counter and buy 4 fully refundable airfares to Kuala Lumpa. Raced back to check in. The tickets we had just bought apparently were no good, there was some problem with payment. More waiting, finally we are told my CC has been refused! Great, leaving to go overseas and my cc has been cancelled for some reason. Nici buys the tickets on her CC and we finally check in.

All sweet. It’s kind of a stupid requirement. We now had proof of onward travel that would allow us to fly to Singapore, and we cash in our tickets when we got there…..So basically we had proof of ability to purchase a fully refundable ticket. Oh well. Beaurocracy.

I ring my bank, phone credit ends in the middle of the call. Ring on Nic’s phone, get through… CC is fine again. Fill my script, race to the gate and we make it with time to spare(flight was 20 minutes late which also helped). We just had time to buy some Macadamias chocolates for our host and we join the line as the final call is made. We board with no further problems and we are on our way.